Wowhead's Patch 5.1 Guide

Patch 5.1 is live today and we've got you covered on all the changes! While there's no new raids or dungeons this patch, there's plenty of things to keep players busy. There's a completely new way to increase the ilvl of your gear, new factions to grind reputation with for gear and mounts, dozens of new pets to collect, and solo PvE challenges with the Brawler's Guild. And if you've been curious to get back to the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde, new questlines and scenarios will cover these factions clashing on the shores of Pandaria.

We've got summaries of all the new content below, as well as links to blue posts and Wowhead's comprehensive PTR coverage.

Patch Notes and Overview

Two new factions offer new gear rewards and mounts while developing the Alliance and Horde conflict in Krasarang Wilds.

Players can permanently increase the ilvl of their gear through currency. Wowhead has developed several tools to display these stat increases for you.

Players can follow the story of the Pandaren Campaign through a series of special quests tied to their reputation with the landing forces. Heroes assisting with the war effort will join key characters and faction leaders as the growing conflagration spreads across Pandaria... as well as other locations around Azeroth.

Players can slay rival NPCs and opposing faction players along the shore to earn commissions that can be spent to upgrade their faction's base.

Look for strategic objectives to capture, including graveyards and towers. Commissions can be spent to recruit guards that will help protect this captured territory!

Players who are truly dedicated to their faction can spend their commissions on an item that will give their fellows an extra reputation group quest for the day. Horde players can speak with Ongrom Black Tooth, while Alliance players can contact Proveditor Grantley for details.

Item Level Upgrades

Players can now use PvE and PvP currencies to directly upgrade equipment by visiting Ethereal merchants in their respective Pandaria faction capitals.

Weapons and armor of item level 458 or higher can be improved by up to 8 item levels each.

Be aware that items that have received item level enhancements cannot be placed into Void Storage.

Legendary Quest

Wrathion has taken a keen interest in the events along the coast of the Krasarang Wilds. Those that have aided the Black Prince in the past will now have new quests to complete as they advance Wrathion’s agenda for Pandaria and their own progress toward Legendary power.

Brawler's Guild

Underground fighting rings have sprung up in Stormwind City and Orgrimmar that will give brawlers who have their mitts on an invitation a chance to earn bragging rights by testing their solo PvE mettle against some of the toughest creatures found in World of Warcraft.

Players will prove their skill, and increase their rank with the Brawler's Guild, as they win matches against some of the most difficult solo encounters in World of Warcraft.

Entry into the brawler’s guild is by invitation only. Invitations can be found on the black market auction house, by invitation from somebody within the guild, and occasionally as drops from certain Horde and Alliance NPCs.

As their Brawler's Guild rank increases, players will unlock additional rewards and activities within the Brawler’s Guild.

Brawlers on a realm will gather together into the blood spattered ring to watch as their peers face down their own opponents. They can watch the battles in progress to learn from hardened Brawler's Guild veterans as they wait for their own turn to fight.

If this is your first night at Brawler's Guild, you have to fight.

Lesser Charm of Good Fortune no longer take up bag space, and are now recorded in the currency tab of the Character Sheet. Grand Commendations are now available for purchase from all Mists of Pandaria faction vendors at Revered reputation. Using a Grand Commendation will permanently increase the amount of reputation gained with that faction across all characters on a Battle.net account.

Classes

The durations of all disarm effects have been reduced to 8 seconds.

The Weakened Blows effect has a new icon.

Death Knight Damage received from players (or player-controlled sources) no longer counts towards increasing the healing done by Death Strike.

A new passive ability has been added: Tooth and Claw. This ability causes autoattacks to have a chance to empower the Druid's next Maul. Empowered Mauls reduce the damage dealt by the target's next autoattack. Guardian Druids obtain this ability at level 32.

All totems are now considered spells, and summoning totems can be prevented by silencing effects. Searing Totem, Magma Totem, and Fire Elemental Totem totems fall into the Fire school, while all other totems fall under the Nature school.

Rain of Fire's damage over time will now hit every 1 second (was 2 seconds). The damage animation for the damage over time effect will no longer always display.

Removed the ranged Melee attack from Demonology Warlocks in Metamorphosis form, and increased the damage of Doom by 25% to compensate. Conflagrate now generates Burning Embers.Demonic Gateway's duration has been increased to 2015 minutes, and it will no longer despawn if the Warlock moves too far away. In addition, this ability can no longer be used in any capital city.

A new item has been introduced that can be used to upgrade the quality of Battle Pets: Battle-stones. Pets over level 15 upgraded in this way can lose up to two levels in the process.

Battle-stones are available in two basic types, general purpose Battle-stones that can be used to upgrade the quality of any pet, and family specific Battle-stones, which can only be used to upgrade pets of a specific pet family.

Players will have a very small chance to obtain a general purpose Flawless Battle-stone after winning a match against wild pets; defeating higher level opponents increases the chances of obtaining a stone. These valuable items are not soulbound, and can be sold on the Auction House.

Family specific Flawless Battle-stones can be found in the Sack of Pet Supplies obtained from performing Pet Trainer quests, and are Bind on Pickup.

General purpose Polished Battle-stones can be purchased for 1000 Justice Points.

Pet Journal

The quality of each pet is now visible in its slot in the Pet Journal.

Pets can now be filtered by name, type, rarity and level, and filters will remain in place each time the Pet Journal is viewed.

It is now possible to search locations in the Pet Journal. For example, searching “Westfall” will display all the Battle Pets that can be found in Westfall.

Pet Battle music is now more appropriate for the type of match being fought. Several new Pet Battle PvP areas have been added to the world. Several classic Raid bosses now have a chance to drop new Battle Pets. The new pets can be obtained from bosses in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, and Naxxramas. Abilities that have been used will now continue to cool down for pets when they are not the active pet in a battle. Right clicking a pet's portrait will now offer the option to look it up in the Pet Journal. Players can now keep up to 650 pets. Battle Pet tooltips will now display whether a pet is owned, and how many pets of that type are owned. Pet Quality is now displayed in battles, and will be visible on portraits, names and tooltips. The level of battle pets in a zone can now be seen on the map, and it’s now possible to see the strength of wild pets relative to your team at a glance. Backline pets now display debuffs affecting them as well as the remaining duration of these effects. The experience multiplier obtained by all seven Grand Master pet trainers in Pandaria has been increased to x5 from x3.5. The experience multiplier obtained by defeating Pet Trainers Julia Stevens, Old MacDonald, Zunta, and Dagra the Fierce has been reduced to x2.5 from x3.5. Macros have been added that allow for summoning random pets and random favorite pets. The Taming the World achievement now awards the Safari Hat, which increases pet experience gained from Pet Battles by 10%. Pets previously removed from the Safari achievements have been added back to the criteria of those achievements now that they're back in the wild. The I Choose You achievement has been added for defeating Grand Master Aki. The reward for this achievement is gold. Players that defeat Aki the Chosen at the culmination of the Battle Pet quest lines can now follow a new line of Battle Pet quests and associated daily quests that allows players to battle against Pandaren spirits. A new Master Pet Tamer offering daily quests has been added to the Darkmoon Faire. Completing quests for the new trainer will offer the chance to acquire a new pet: the Darkmoon Eye. The Dragon Kite can now be used in Pet Battles. The Imperial Silkworm and Imperial Moth pets can now be created by Tailors. A number of pets that could previously only be found accompanying other pets into battle can now be found roaming the world. A number of new capturable pets can be found in the world from pet families that were once more sparsely populated. Two new Battle Pets now roam Darkmoon Island waiting to be caught. Fixed an issue that would prevent some pets captured in Pet Battles from correctly saving their skin color once added to the Pet Journal. Player versus Player Pet Battles now award more experience. Large plants and bushes in the environment that interfered with visibility during Pet Battles while now fade out of view during the match. Fixed a bug where the Gazelle would join pet battles.

Sunsong Ranch A new Seed has been added: Unstable Portal Shard A mage who fell on hard times back in Dalaran has found a new home on Pandaria. Barnaby Fletcher will occasionally visit Halfhill Market to peddle a new type of seed – and take advantage of the Tillers’ hospitality.

Unstable Portal Shards grow into consumable items which can be used to open a portal from Sunsong Ranch to a major faction city.

Seeds now stack to 50. Runty crops now have a spell visual to help call attention to themselves. Growing crops now display the duration until the crop is ready to harvest. Characters who have earned the Friends on the Farm achievement will no longer find gifts while harvesting Cooking Ingredient crops – instead, they have a chance to find special seeds such as Magebulb Seed, Enigma Seed, Songbell Seed, and more.

Raid groups are no longer necessary to enter pre-Mists of Pandara raid dungeons. Enemies in these raids that previously required more than one player to defeat are now more easily dealt with by players battling alone.

Scenarios now include Dungeon Finder queue features, including leaders, backfill, vote to kick, and deserter debuffs. Roles are still not required.

PvP The growing conflict between the Horde and the Alliance has spilled across the face of Azeroth: level 90 players can now queue for Wintergrasp and Tol Barad via the PvP tab to battle one another in these epic conflicts.

Arena matches now have a 25 minute time limit (was 45 minutes).

Rated Battlegrounds now share the same spell restrictions as Arenas.

ProfessionsFishingThe Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza has returned every Sunday, but now allows three winners per tournament. It also offers competitors a chance to earn the rewards once offered by the the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby.

Speckled Tastyfish fishing pools no longer spawn during the tournament. Instead, Tastyfish can be caught from any fishing node in all parts of Stranglethorn Vale while the tournament is active. This includes inland nodes, and wreckage.

Cooking A cooking profession bag has been added, and can be purchased with Ironpaw Tokens from Nam Ironpaw.

All mineral nodes will now despawn one minute after they are mined, even if items remain in them.

UI

Justice, Valor, Honor and Conquest Point quartermasters are now signified by new minimap icons.

A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. Configuration options are available in the “Combat” section of the “Interface Options" menu.

A search bar has been added to the mount section of the Mount and Pet Journal.

Players can now properly earn credit for the Last Man Standing achievement. The Turkey Shooter can no longer be used on mounted players. Fixed an issue that would cause various items to be awarded to players of the incorrect class or specialization in Raid Finder encounters. Fixed an issue that would prevent some items from The Terrace of Endless Spring from being disenchanted.

This epic storyline centers around the Horde trying to get their hands on a deadly yet potent Mogu artifact, and the Alliance trying to stop them. Along the way, many faction leaders get involved. Check out our preview of these quests.

Each base has objectives for the enemy team to capture like graveyards and towers, commissions to earn that can recruit guards to protect your new territory, and daily questsgivers.Players can loot Domination Point Commission and Lion's Landing Commission from enemy NPCs, and turn them into Provisioners for temporary items that buff your faction's base. Check out the full list of purchasable items here.

These hubs also have rare faction mobs the other side can kill for epic trinkets and Brawler's Guild Invitations.

Upgrading Gear Through Currency

The majority of gear upgrades in 5.1 will come through a new currency-based upgrade system. Players can permanently increase the ilvl of their 458+ gear by visiting a new Ethereal and cashing in spare currency.

We've also developed some features at Wowhead to help you plan your upgrades!

An Upgrade column has been added to search result pages. This displays all the upgrade versions for an item in icon form, similar to dynamic quest rewards. Mousing over these icons will display the upgraded versions.

Upgrading your gear is as simple as visiting the new NPC at your faction's Pandaria capital and clicking the upgrade button. The UI has a handy preview of the stat increases, so you can compare the strength of several items before deciding which upgraded version you like the best. In-game tooltips also display how much an item has been upgraded, for easy reference.

Brawler's Guild

The Brawler's Guilds are fighting rings set up in Stormwind and Orgrimmar where players engage in solo PvE challenges by queuing up and fighting challenging bosses in a large pit. Winning increases your rank within the Brawler's Guild, making you eligible for more and more rewards. The areas are set up so that players fight in a central pit while spectators are encouraged to watch on the sides. We tested out some bosses on the PTR and have information and screenshots up.

The Horde area is located in the Valley of Honor and resembles the Ring of Blood--a large circular pit encased in wooden spikes. The Alliance area we think wins on style points--it's got a hidden entrance in the Deeprun Tram, an underground bar, and unique lighting. Check out our PTR visual preview of these two new areas, as well as a look at some of the fun Horde NPCs.

Participating in the Brawler's Guild may be a bit exclusive at first, since only players with Blood-Soaked Invitation can join. 10 invitations are on the Black Market Auction House daily, and they also drop from select Alliance and Horde NPCs. Players with invitations can invite 1 friend at Rank 7.

Anyone can purchase the following items, regardless of reputation with the Brawler's Guild:

New Scenarios

The escalating conflict between the Alliance and Horde is most dramatically seen in new questlines and scenarios.

Assault on Zan'vess is a new scenario both factions can participate in. The Mantid are working with the corrupt Horde to bolster defenses in the Dread Wastes.

Each side has two faction-specific scenarios:Alliance:

Lion's Landing: The Alliance find their base under attack by the Horde, and players must work with SI:7 and other Alliance NPCs from Jade Forest questlines to save the territory. Click here to read Wowhead's preview.

A Little Patience: The Horde have set up defenses at the Temple of Chi-Ji in Krasarang Wilds, and Varian and Tyrande are planning an attack. Tyrande wants to charge right in, while Varian senses a Horde trap and builds additional defenses. Click here to read Wowhead's preview.

Horde:

Dagger in the Dark: In this scenario, players help Vol'jin investigate the dark origins of the Saurok, and then assist him in his subsequent betrayal by the Horde. Click here to read Wowhead's preview.

The last Horde scenario, Domination Point, was not available to test on the PTR.

Scenarios also have a few additional bonuses in 5.1. Dungeon Finder queue features have been added, such as leaders, backfill, vote to kick, and deserter debuffs. In addition, there is a chance to get ilvl 463 weapons as a reward for completing a scenario.

Pet Battles

Several new wild pets have been added, mostly to fill out pet families that were scarce on capturable pets, like Mechanicals and Dragonkin. Click here for a full list of all the new wild pets, their locations, screenshots, and abilities.

There are several Pet Battle UI improvements, including improved sort features, wild pet levels indicated on zone maps, several tooltip improvements, and wild pet quality displayed in the UI. Check out our screenshots and preview of all the changes.

A new passive ability has been added: Tooth and Claw. This ability causes autoattacks to have a chance to empower the Druid's next Maul. Empowered Mauls reduce the damage dealt by the target's next autoattack. Guardian Druids obtain this ability at level 32.

All totems are now considered spells, and summoning totems can be prevented by silencing effects. Searing Totem, Magma Totem, and Fire Elemental Totem totems fall into the Fire school, while all other totems fall under the Nature school.

Rain of Fire's damage over time will now hit every 1 second (was 2 seconds). The damage animation for the damage over time effect will no longer always display.

Removed the ranged Melee attack from Demonology Warlocks in Metamorphosis form, and increased the damage of Doom by 25% to compensate. Conflagrate now generates Burning Embers.Demonic Gateway's duration has been increased to 2015 minutes, and it will no longer despawn if the Warlock moves too far away. In addition, this ability can no longer be used in any capital city.

General Changes

Blizzard changed the layout of their in-game tooltips: secondary stats are all displayed in green, the Upgrade level is displayed at the top, and basic information such as the level requirement has changed position. We've updated Wowhead's own item tooltips to reflect these changes.

Cooldown timers greater than 5 minutes will now reset between attempts on Challenge Mode dungeons.

Reputation Changes

To help with alts and reputation farming, in 5.1, each faction now has a special commendation that can be purchased at Revered from quartermasters which unlocks a 100% bonus reputation gain for all characters on the account. The primary character at Revered also earns double reputation as they work towards Exalted.

So far only Mists of Pandaria reputations are affected by this system, and no word if gaining Friendship with Tiller NPCs will be affected by this.

If you plant a vegetable crop and are already Best Friends with Tiller NPCs, you'll get useful bonus profession seeds instead of gifts you no longer need.

Achievements

Highlights include many new Scenario achievements, Wakener which rewards a title, a series of exploration achievements for finding objects like Statue of Xuen, and several pet battle achievements with fun rewards.

Comments

Comment by Scarydreams

Thanks for the great info. It should help lots of players I know it will help me. Keep up the great work you all ROCK !

Comment by kentis92

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:20:36 -0600

WoW's 9th Anniversary - Logged in during WoW's 8th Anniversary.

Guess this is a mistake? :)

Comment by rimz4107

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:27:21 -0600

So much stuff so little time! Hurry up Winter break!

Comment by thaedris20

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:30:03 -0600

WoW's 9th Anniversary - Logged in during WoW's 8th Anniversary.

Guess this is a mistake? :)

most likely but they have till next year to fix it

Comment by fogyreef

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:31:41 -0600

Can you clarify for those who might not know that the reputation commendations are battlenet account-wide, not just account-wide? Thanks!

Comment by Aoife59

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:34:03 -0600

Excellent guide, Perculia! I've recommended it to my guildies.

Comment by Greysdawn

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:54:17 -0600

A new carousel gives players the buff WHEE!

This made me LOL. epic buff name!...Although it did bring me back to a certain LK boss emote...WHEEEEE ! *shudder*

Comment by LaCrysta

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:36:22 -0600

I only see one protable refrigerator, are we still going to be able to upgrade it? Or has Blizz decided to just have one?

Comment by Kunzzi

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:45:48 -0600

Awesome guide Perculia but I believe you forgot to mention gag order glyph nerf as it affects warriors. Didn't play on ptr but Blizzard pretty much stated this nerf is sure to hit 5.1, do you know something I don't?

Comment by DOLFOW

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:05:28 -0600

All daily quests grant +250 reputation. Check out the full list of dailies for Operation Shieldwall and Dominance Offensive, and our PTR preview.

Just finished the set of dailys and got only 165 REP

Comment by hellos2478

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:19:32 -0600

WHAAT? I was under the impression that this wouldn't be out for another month or so! What did I miss?

Comment by felhunter

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:30:52 -0600

seems there was a hotfix too buff aspect of the (iron) hawk with an addiontal 5% Attack Power.for a total of +15% AP

Comment by Rainemard

Comment by zim57398

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it was either nixed entirely or pushed back.

Sad face.

Comment by perculia

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:41:13 -0600

Yeah, I took the Warlock quest part out of the guide because Blizzard tweeted that it was being completely pushed back.

Updated the guide with class and and reputation updates. The hotfixes can also be found at the top of the guide, the second expandable blue bar.

Comment by CalaelenDT

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:48:55 -0600

I can confirm that you do not get double reputation with the Tiller NPCs upon learning the Tillers Commendation. I'm assuming this also means Nat Pagle will not be affected by the Anglers Commendation.

Comment by Interest

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:00:28 -0600

WHAAT? I was under the impression that this wouldn't be out for another month or so! What did I miss?

I was anticipating this or next week. It only makes sense. Expansion's been out for nearly 2 months as is and they want to push out content faster.

Comment by TomatoSauce

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:57:53 -0600

I've been waiting years for the Mr. Bigglesworth pet!

Comment by regma

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:21:31 -0600

Looking nice. Also cant wait till I do the stories and see how this "mess" will play out.

Comment by Jazzism

on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:30:16 -0600

I'm actually EXTREMELY disappointed about the item upgrade.I've been looking forward to breaking out my Precisely Calibrated Boomstick for ages and the thought of buffing it with current gear level stats was an exciting thought.